Mean
by Shinsun
Summary: Had to repost this cuz fanficnet deleted it. i had to take the lyrics away from it, the original is on my tumblr btw, but its still a songfic for Taylor Swift's "Mean". Vegeta is still a child and he gets picked on by Frieza almost constantly. He has to ask himself what could have made the tyrant so cruel and whether he himself is similar to his tormentor. I own nothing.


Mean

DBZ one-shot songfic by Shinsun

_((I had to cut out the lyrics because of copyright issues, but this is still a songfic, regarless.))_

Vegeta stumbled as a brutal kick was slammed into his back without warning. The twelve-year-old Saiyan prince righted himself and whipped around to face his tormentor. Frieza. Of course.

"What was that for?" he demanded, gingerly feeling the spot where the ice-jin's foot had collided with his spine.

Frieza sneered carelessly, "Do I need a reason?"

Vegeta blinked, he hadn't expected that. He'd expected to be told that he hadn't bowed down before the tyrant's feet, or that he had made too much eye contact upon passing, or too little. Something like that. _Why in the galaxies would I be punished without reason?_

Frieza started to walk away, but Vegeta spoke up against the better judgment in the back of his mind.

"If you're going to hurt me, can you at least tell me why?"

Apparently Frieza didn't like that. He growled between his teeth and smashed Vegeta to the ground face first, placing his foot on the prince's spine as if he were freshly killed game.

"Well let's see," Frieza leered in his ear, "You're disrespectful, lazy, arrogant, ugly, and too short to be of much use. I don't see any reason why I shouldn't bash up something that's already useless anyway."

And with that the ice-jin left with a flick of his tail, he didn't even look back at the prince sprawled on the floor.

Vegeta sat up slowly, painfully, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth and wrapping his tail around his waist like a belt. _Why does he have to be so nasty all the time? It's not fair._

Vegeta admitted secretly that the tyrant's words had cut him deep. One of the only things keeping him on his feet right now was his pride in himself. After all, that was all he could trust.

It had been almost five years since Planet Vegeta – his home – had been destroyed and he was forced to obey that lizard's every whim. In all that time, he'd been insulted, beaten and bullied almost to the breaking point. The only thing keeping his chin up was the honor of a prince that weighed heavily on him despite Frieza's taunts.

Said taunts had only gotten worse the older Vegeta got. Frieza could be very inventive in his word choice, and the threats and insults and put-downs were so frequent that Vegeta had come to hate the very sound of the ice-jin's voice; which was understandable; just about everyone he knew did. And even when Vegeta was bleeding after a battle and had fulfilled the tyrant's orders flawlessly, Frieza always found something that was wrong with anything Vegeta did. Whether it was that he'd shown insubordinance or that he had a smudge on the toe of his boot, it was all the same to Frieza.

It wasn't fair in the slightest. Frieza was at least three times as big as Vegeta; he was a skilled and seasoned fighter and had vast armies at his command. Vegeta was an undersized pre-teen prince with next to no experience in battle thus far and even less when it came to allies. If Frieza wanted to, he could kill Vegeta with one blast and be done with it. Sometimes Vegeta wondered why Frieza even kept him around if he was as "useless" as the ice-jin said.

Why did Frieza hate Vegeta so much? Vegeta wasn't fond of the lizard in the slightest, but he hadn't shown the level of utter hatred that Frieza slathered over everything that made Vegeta who he was. And Vegeta never raised a hand against him. He might question him, he might be stubborn, but he never disobeyed if Frieza gave him a direct order. _Maybe he's just mean,_ the prince thought dejectedly.

He was nearly a slave to Frieza. He almost _belonged_ to him. But sometimes Vegeta had to wonder what his life would be like without the ice-jin breathing down his neck. Even without Planet Vegeta, he could find a much better living than what he had. The universe was a big place, there had to be somewhere that would befit a Saiyan prince. _Maybe someplace with a lot of buildings,_ he thought absently, _a nice big city to call my own. I wouldn't even care if the inhabitants bowed to me, so long as they didn't bother me._

For a moment, Vegeta allowed himself to drift into that fantasy world, where he didn't have a care and fought for sport rather than war. Then the sting of his busted lip and the ache of his spine came back and he got to his feet. It would never be like that. It was impossible. But still… it was a nice dream.

Time passed, a few hours, a few days, it didn't matter. Vegeta was running down the hallway of Frieza's ship to his station, pulling one of his boots on at the same time. His diminutive size made him trip over his own feet and he fell to the ground, gritting out a few of Radditz's favorite swear words as he attempted to catch himself and failed.

"Tsk, tsk." He looked up, Frieza was looking down at him disapprovingly, "Clumsy. Sloppy footwork even without the stumble; can't even run without flailing."

"I don't _flail_," he objected, tail lashing as he got to his feet, "And I can't help it if my legs are the longest part of my body."

"You're just too _short,_" Frieza snapped, whacking the back of Vegeta's head with his white, ropey tail, slamming the prince back to the floor.

Vegeta nearly bit through the inside of his cheek as he hit the ground.

Then, as if he'd suddenly grown bored, Frieza just walked away. Vegeta watched him go; usually the lizard would have thrown a few more taunts before leaving. But then, Frieza unpredictability was what made him terrifying.

"Why does he have to do that?" he muttered to himself as he stood up again, "I _know_ I'm short, he doesn't have to rub it in."

He kept his eyes on the floor for the rest of the day, avoiding eye contact and dipping his head even lower whenever he crossed Frieza. Not out of respect, but to evade further derisions. And even then, he could feel the tyrant's eyes fixed on him scornfully, as if he were something unpleasant the lizard might find stuck under his chair. Vegeta almost wanted to scream. _What does it take? Nothing I do is good enough for you! Even when I'm perfect, I'm wrong!_

That night Vegeta sat on his bunk, lost in thought. What in the universe could have made Frieza so heartless and cruel? Was he simply born that way, or had someone forced it on him? And if Frieza kept beating on Vegeta, would he become as cold as the ice-jin himself one day?

His thoughts returned unbidden to his musings from before. What if he just ran away? Found that city on a distant planet and never had to look at the lizard again? He was a child now, but he'd grow older, and then he could live how he wanted, right? He sighed. It was extremely unlikely that he'd even get a speck more freedom or respect when he matured. He'd still probably be Frieza's punching bag, and if the insults didn't stop, they'd probably double.

As Vegeta contemplated Frieza's past again, lying down and crossing his arms over his chest, he came up with a few scenarios that might make sense. He remembered Frieza mentioning his father, King Cold. Maybe the King had been abusive or extremely strict. Maybe he'd forced Frieza to go down the path he was travelling now. It was hard to imagine Frieza as anything but a ruthless tyrant, but if that were the case, Vegeta could almost understand why the lizard had turned out the way he had. He closed his eyes slowly; that still didn't excuse Frieza's constant mockeries and lies. In the end, Vegeta concluded that Frieza was just a cold-hearted monster. No matter how horrible his upbringing might have been, he was just evil.

Then the prince fell asleep on the unsettling thought that if Frieza was undeniably evil, where did that leave Vegeta, and his future?

_-Shinsun_


End file.
